I'd known he was going to be incredible -- really, truly incredible.
I'd seen the pictures. I'd posted a few of them here (Ex. A, Ex. B). I'd been well aware of the awesomeness to come.
Except it turns out that I hadn't.
The pictures had been nothing, had done nothing to prepare me.
I hadn't known a thing.
You see, the finished Fernando arrived from Erika today, and he is absolutely breathtaking. Beyond breathtaking. Extraordinary. (Is extraordinary beyond breathtaking?) Really, if my brain weren't far too overwhelmed to operate a motor vehicle right now (shut up, that's my excuse for last week, too), I'd drive to the library and study a thesaurus until I'd learned some suitably worthy adjectives.
He -- and she -- are that phenomenal.
He arrived earlier this afternoon in a box that, if one were a USPS screener, one surely must have assumed contained black market body parts, a couple of kilos of cocaine or an IED. I have no idea how it made it through. Perhaps it was the smiley.
Regardless, made it through it did, and I knew exactly what it contained, so I spent roughly 45 minutes performing a packingtapectomy so painstaking, so precise, that I cannot possibly help but wonder whether I missed my calling as a world-class heart surgeon.
Eventually, at long last, the final remaining cardboard fell away, and a mummified bundle of bubble wrap was revealed.
Like an OCD-riddled archaeologist, I unraveled layer after layer after layer.
After layer.
After layer.
And then.
After all that.
There he was.
Even now, photography cannot possibly do him justice. His own mother would kiss his face. His uniform billows and flows. His baseball is made of real baseball. Real baseball! Truly, the combination of the texture, the detail, of how he seems to be springing to life right out of the mounting -- it's simply, well, it's simply empyreal.
If you love Fernando as much as I do -- which, so long as you possess at least one working eye and a half-working brain you surely must -- definitely check out the rest of Erika's website, her Flickr page, and maybe become a fan of hers on Facebook.
Thanks again, Erika!
7 comments:
DYNAMITE!
wow! i looked through her other art on the fan page on facebook...incredible!
very talented and brilliant work!
I say we enjoy the Fernando with an ocho cinco during the Twins game tonite!
Big Slow.
opening something like that is so exciting; something you've been waiting for for so long, something that you know is going to be amazing - and then to have it sealed so well that it takes awhile to open. i love that feeling.
What happened to his right foot (cf. Ex. B)?
Megan - I coulda used some dynamite to help with that tape.
Betsy - Indeed.
Slow - Count it.
Lucy - Me too.
Anonymous - The Artist removed it according to her Artistic Discretion. (She felt the image looked more "explosive" without it.)
If I may interject and give anonymous a simple lesson in art.
To me, the ball represents the way back to the source, to Fernando.
That is what Erika succeeds in conveying in all of her art.
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